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| Photo: arbyreed |
Apparently Lake Mead is currently at so low a point (around 50% of its capacity) that the main water supply 'tube' for Las Vegas is in danger of rising above the surface. The Hoover Dam generates around 2 gigawatts of electricity and serves about 1.3 million people - not sure how it would be replaced if that generating capacity were lost.
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| Photo: Civil Twilight |
"Marcus Felson, a professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, has concluded that lighting is effective in preventing crime mainly if it enables people to notice criminal activity as it’s taking place, and if it doesn’t help criminals to see what they’re doing. Bright, unshielded floodlights—one of the most common types of outdoor security lighting in the country—often fail on both counts, as do all-night lights installed on isolated structures or on parts of buildings that can’t be observed by passersby (such as back doors). A burglar who is forced to use a flashlight, or whose movement triggers a security light controlled by an infrared motion sensor, is much more likely to be spotted than one whose presence is masked by the blinding glare of a poorly placed [flood light]."
Kudos the the International Dark-Sky Association for trying to keep our night skies visible and helping us to use less energy in the process. Another interesting proposal comes from the group Civil Twilight, who won a Metropolis Magazine Next Generation Award for their design concept: streetlights that respond to ambient moonlight, dimming and brightening each month as the moon cycles through its phases.
People hear about children being abducted on the news what seems like very often these days. So they assume the streets aren't very safe, and as a result, kids don't get the freedom to roam the way that I did when I was young. But are things really the way that they seem - or are people just more paranoid because of their perceptions?
Although statistics show that rates of child abduction and sexual abuse have marched steadily downward since the early 1990s, fear of these crimes is at an all-time high. Even the panic-inducing Megan's Law Web site says stranger abduction is rare and that 90 percent of child sexual-abuse cases are committed by someone known to the child. Yet we still suffer a crucial disconnect between perception of crime and its statistical reality. A child is almost as likely to be struck by lightning as kidnapped by a stranger, but it's not fear of lightning strikes that parents cite as the reason for keeping children indoors watching television instead of out on the sidewalk skipping rope.
And when a child is parked on the living room floor, he or she may be safe, but is safety the sole objective of parenting? The ultimate goal is independence, and independence is best fostered by handing it out a little at a time, not by withholding it in a trembling fist that remains clenched until it's time to move into the dorms.
I guess it really is true - if you think that you can do something, then you probably can. Or, maybe, if you haven't been told that you can't - if you have the correct mindset that you have the ability to do whatever you set yourself to, regardless of your "innate" talents, then you can. Psychology professor Carol Dweck has a book out about this, and some good research (and lots of people who would probably say that it's true and they don't need research to convince them) to back her up.
An interesting aspect of this, and the lead to the story is how knowing you're smart can supposedly hold you back. If you're told that you're smart, then you lose the incentive to develop your brain, and you just attempt to "act" smart. Seems like she should write a book for parents on how to motivate their kids, how to give them the proper mindset.
I recommend reading the short article about the chemicals the English terrorists were planning to bring on the plane (theoretically) and the seriously low probability they would have had in doing any damage.
When global warming really kicks in and the polar ice caps start melting, causing flooding along coastal areas world-wide, how bad will it really be? Check out this handy interactive map.
Going through some old pictures I found one of a salt water eel that I used to own. Very interesting creatures.
I came across this graphic in an article on genetic research in population distribution in Iceland for some research I am doing be in (of all things) transportation. If you are a fan of Edward Tufte, this is for you:
The colors on the top left show the genes of the original settlers in the counties of Iceland. The color wheels in the subsequent maps show the mixing of genes as the population moves around and inter-breeds. No text necessary, just an elegant way to show a complex idea.
Creationism? Intelligent design? Evolution? There is only one supreme being, and it is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
In the San Joaquin Valley of California, cows might be producing more pollution than cars. Go figure.
Oil and gasoline are going to be with us a little bit longer, so here is a bit of visual data on why this country, and the world really, needs more fuel efficient vehicles.
Transportation - mainly cars and trucks - make up the largest part, and growing, of our use of oil.
We are registering more vehicles and using more fuel (the proportion of fuel-to-vehicle is fortunately getting slightly smaller as one person can only drive one vehicle at a time)
We are driving more and more in our vehicles.
After a brief to jump in fuel efficiency and amount driven per car after the last energy crisis, both have stayed constant. It is really quite a shame that and advanced country like ours can not - or shall I say does not - produce more fuel efficient cars then we do. The other average has stayed the same because, see above, we have more cars to drive.
The president mentioned conservation a couple weeks ago as the first point in a strategy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Given the above data, it is obvious where that conservation should start.
"Heal the Bay's 15th Annual Beach Report Card provides essential water quality information to the millions of people who swim, surf, or dive in California coastal waters. Essential reading for ocean users, the report card grades approximately 350 locations year-round (about 460 locations in dry weather from April to October) on an A-F scale based on the risk of adverse health effects to swimmers and surfers."
My sleep cycle runs about an hour and 35 minutes. Now there's a watch that can monitor it and wake me up when I'm at the end of one, when I'm most awake.
Interesting article in Scientific American Mind, courtesy of noise between stations:
Kraft makes the argument that we are born with this creativity — young children are invention machines — but 20 years of convergent-thinking education strengthens the left brain’s domination over the right brain.
Apparently, destroying the earth is quite a hard thing to do. If you are interested though, here is a pseudo-scientific list of the most feasible methods...
At least it is for an educational purpose. In the area of odd and kind of creepy research (not to mention kind of gross for the poor people posted in the bathrooms to observe behavior), some Hunter College undergraduates observed the hand washing behavior of a couple thousand New York City inhabitants. Almost a quarter of them did not use soap when washing their hands, good news for your average public bathroom dwelling germ but bad news for those people. Unsurprisingly, almost 20% of men did not even bother to rinse their hands. Well, what has 1 in 5 New York City men touched before they shook your hand?
Some medical researchers at Stanford University moved a step closer to figuring out how marijuana works. I'm curious how they did their testing on the brains they were analyzing...
This seems like a strange sick joke: Genetic Savings & Clone charges $50,000 for a cloned cat and $295 to $1,395 to store a cat's genetic material. I guess not though, because the first cloned cats are at the New York Cat Show.
Rendering thousands of science fiction books factually incorrect, Steven Hawking changed his mind about black holes and decided that they do not destroy all matter that they suck in. I'm glad for the advancement of science, and this seems to make more sense, but it is less viscerally interesting as theories go...